‘Hindu extremists target Muslim sites in India’, even 7th wonder of the world
"The movement's core tenet has long been that Hinduism is India's original religion, and that everything else -- from the Mughals, originally from Central Asia, to the British -- is alien."
New Delhi: “Thirty years after mobs demolished a historic mosque in Ayodhya, triggering a wave of sectarian bloodshed that saw thousands killed, fundamentalist Indian Hindu groups are eyeing other Muslim sites — even the world-famous Taj Mahal.” AFP reported.
The report further noted, “Emboldened under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, aided by courts and fuelled by social media, the fringe groups believe the sites were built on top of Hindu temples, which they consider representations of India’s “true” religion.”
Referring to the latest claim that a shivalinga, was discovered at the centuries-old Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, the report expressed fear that the Islamic place of worship will go the way of the Ayodhya mosque.
The report observed that the demolition of Babri Masjid was also a seminal moment for Hindutva — Hindu supremacy — paving the way for Modi’s rise to power in 2014. It claimed that the movement’s core tenet has long been that Hinduism is India’s original religion, and that everything else — from the Mughals, originally from Central Asia, to the British — is alien.
The report deplored that despite no credible evidence, some groups have even set their sights on UNESCO world heritage site the Taj Mahal, India’s best-known monument attracting millions of visitors every year.
The report stated that Audrey Truschke, an associate professor of South Asian history with Rutgers University, said the claims about the Taj Mahal are “about as reasonable as the proposals that the Earth is flat”. It quoted her as saying, “So far as I can discern, there is not a coherent theory about the Taj Mahal at play here so much as a frenzied and fragile nationalist pride that does not allow anything non-Hindu to be Indian and demands to erase Muslim parts of Indian heritage.”
The report listed other sites that are also in the crosshairs, including the Shahi Idgah mosque in Mathura, built by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, Delhi’s Qutub Minar, a 13th-century minaret and victory tower built by the Mamluk dynasty.
